Carey Mulligan

If you don't know Carey Mulligan now, you will -- this much is practically assured. The waifish, absurdly cute English actress has no formal training, but what she lacks in that department she makes up for in sheer determination -- a willfulness that required her to defy her family but will almost inevitably result in making her a superstar.

Appeal

Chloe Fox, writing for the Telegraph, said that Mulligan looks like "the most delicate of English roses," a fitting description of this attractive and waifish young actress. She still has the ability to play a schoolgirl, a trait that should appease guys with that particular fetish. Yet nothing quite overcomes the simple fact that when all is said and done, Carey Mulligan is so adorably cute it borders on ridiculous. Furthermore, her intense determination to be an actress -- and the extraordinary steps she took to make it happen -- are endearing qualities that only bolster the case for Carey Mulligan as being the global girl next door.

Mulligan has also received praise for her stage work, notably earning a 2009 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her work in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull on Broadway.

Carey Mulligan Biography

Born in London, Carey Mulligan spent her early childhood raised in Germany before returning to London, as the family followed her father in his work as a hotel management consultant. Her family was adamantly opposed to her interest in acting and repeatedly tried to discourage her.

carey mulligan's defiance and determination

While attending Surrey's Woldingham School, she saw Kenneth Branagh in Henry V and was so awestruck that she did something supremely naive and charming: She wrote Branagh a letter, telling him her parents were opposed to her acting, that she believed it was her "vocation in life," and she wanted to know if he would serve as her mentor. Branagh himself didn't bite, but his sister reputedly responded, saying: "Kenneth says that if you feel such a strong need to be an actress, you must be an actress."

Then, while preparing to attend Reading University -- a path forced upon her by her parents, which she compared to an arranged marriage -- Mulligan once again tried to reach out to a famous actor. This time, it was English actor and novelist Julian Fellowes, and it worked -- Fellowes' wife invited her to dinner, and soon she was auditioning for director Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

carey mulligan's trial by fire

It's a hell of a way to start a film career, playing Kitty Bennet, one of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice, a film that received four Oscar nominations, including one to Keira Knightley for Best Actress -- but that's pretty much how Carey Mulligan got her start. This trial by fire served her well down the road.

carey mulligan expands her resume

Following Pride and Prejudice, Carey Mulligan began building her acting resume, in film, TV and on the stage. She costarred alongside Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, in My Boy Jack and she appeared in two critically lauded Masterpiece Theatre miniseries, The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard and Bleak House. She also appeared on stage in the Royal Court production of The Seagull with Kristin Scott Thomas, a role that earned her rave reviews from the Daily Telegraph, the Observer and the Independent -- the kind of review trifecta that could turn an actress into a star.

carey mulligan in 2010

In Carey Mulligan's latest film, The Greatest, Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon play a married couple whose eldest son dies in a car crash. Months later, a young woman (Mulligan) shows up on their doorstep and informs the couple that she is pregnant with their deceased son's child. Heavy stuff.

Carey Mulligan will also appear in the highly anticipated Money Never Sleeps, Oliver Stone's highly anticipated sequel to Wall Street, playing Winnie Geiko, the daughter of Michael Douglas' infamous character. She has also just signed on to play the part of Eliza Doolittle in the 2012 remake of My Fair Lady, which originally starred Audrey Hepburn.